Ingénue
by MissAndrony
Summary: When the fairytale romance is stripped away, Usagi and Mamoru realize they're two lonely people with many secrets between them...could their pasts destroy the fragile happiness they lied to each other to build


READ ALL AUTHOR'S NOTES BELOW. Break lines are not from song.   
(All explanations follow.)  
  
Originally written for the SMRFF lyric wheel challenge; ended up   
being a lot more.  
  
Set about a day after episode #132 (#125 in the dub), which is the   
episode with Saori and Kobayashi.   
  
Jessica Riddle - "Even Angels Fall"  
  
You found hope, you found faith  
Found out how fast she could take it away  
Found true love, Lost your heart  
Now you don't know who you are  
  
She made it easy she made it free  
Made you hurt 'til you couldn't see  
Sometimes it stops; Sometimes it flows  
But baby that is how love goes  
  
You will fly and you will crawl   
God knows even angels fall  
No such thing as you lost it all  
God knows even angels fall  
  
It's a secret that know one tells  
One day it's heaven, one day its hell;   
And it's no fairytale, take it from me   
That's the way its supposed to be  
  
You will fly and you will crawl   
God knows even angels fall  
No such thing as you lost it all  
God knows even angels fall  
  
You laugh you cry no one knows why,  
But oh the thrill of it all  
You're on the ride; you might as well open your eyes  
  
You will fly and you will crawl   
God knows even angels fall  
No such thing as you lost it all  
God knows even angels fall  
  
Even angels fall  
Even angels fall  
  
  
Ingénue (Even Angels Fall)  
Author: Ai  
~Inspired by Jessica Riddle's "Even Angels Fall"~  
Rating: Questionable. Technically PG-13 for content, but not   
recommended for readers under 15 due to themes.  
E-mail: tennyo@attbi.com  
Disclaimer: Don't sue me, don't threaten my life, and if ANYTHING   
happens to my favorite shirt, you will so feel the full brunt of my wrath.  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
in·gé·nue /'an-j&-"nü, 'än-; 'an-zh&-, 'än-/  
Function: noun  
Etymology: French ingénue, feminine of ingénu ingenuous, from Latin   
ingenuus  
Date: 1848  
1: A naive girl or young woman  
2: The stage role of an ingénue; also : an actress playing such a role  
(And your parents told you you'd never learn anything from fanfiction.)  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
  
"I can't believe they gave you two for the price of one."  
  
Tsukino Chibiusa had a mildly disgusted look on her face, as if   
the ice cream she was steadily devouring was flavored with broccoli   
instead of strawberry. Taking another decisive lick, she glared, half-  
envious, half-repulsed by her future mother's giddy expression and new   
prizes.  
  
Usagi smiled smugly, her nose wrinkling in amused disdain as they   
walked along the unusually vacant streets of Juuban. She proudly   
displayed her plunder, in the form of a comical stuffed horse and a   
plump hippopotamus, for the few passing people to see. The sun was   
starting to set, and a few people were already prowling the area for   
nocturnal activity. "Say what you want, Chibiusa. *You're* just   
jealous."  
  
"That's right." The compacted girl made another face. "I'm   
jealous of a 15-year-old girl who just spent four hours trying to decide   
whether to buy a stuffed hippo-po-potamus--" the way her tongue   
tripped over the last word belied her youth, "--and a horse. I want to   
be just like you when I grow up!" Chibiusa snorted in a very horse-  
like manner.  
  
"Ungrateful snot," Usagi stuck out her tongue. "I still think   
you're jealous."  
  
Chibiusa was willing to let that one slide, especially in light   
of the fact it was true. "So..." the conically-styled child began,   
eager to change the subject, "how *did* you convince the store owner to   
give you the horse for free?"  
  
Usagi smirked. "Trade secret," she said with a sly wink.  
  
"I didn't know you could keep a secret," Chibiusa mused   
thoughtfully.  
  
"Yeah, well--" Usagi was about to start her tirade when heavy   
footsteps and what sounded like a man yelling interrupted her train of   
thought. Chibiusa's eyes shifted about, searching for the source of   
the confusion.  
  
"What was that?" Chibiusa asked, growing concerned.  
  
"I don't know," Usagi admitted with an uneasy glance in the   
direction from which the sound had come. "Little early for Amazon Trio   
to be trying again...they usually take a few days to regroup."  
  
"But we should--"  
  
"I didn't say we wouldn't," Usagi scowled, "I was making an   
observation."  
  
"Whatever," the younger girl said, inadvertently mimicking her   
mother's tone and facial expression perfectly. "Let's go."  
  
Usagi clutched her brooch as she and Chibiusa ran to the source,   
but decided against transforming immediately. It was better to make   
certain they were needed first than risk drawing attention to   
themselves. Slowing to allow Chibiusa, with her significantly shorter   
legs, to keep up with her, Usagi quietly prayed another attack hadn't   
taken place already.  
  
"Do you SEE this? I mean did you honestly take a good look at   
it?" Usagi could hear a thin veneer of restraint in the man's voice.   
Whoever he was, he sounded as if he were ready to take a machete and   
commence hacking.  
  
Chibiusa stopped dead in her tracks. Usagi had to brace herself   
to keep from crashing into an acid-green bush. She gave the pink-  
haired child a cheeky grin, so a note of her near-save would be made.  
  
"I see it...so?"  
  
She may not have recognized the first man, but Usagi would know   
Chiba Mamoru's cool, unruffled voice until her dying day. Her   
fantastic save was squandered as, in her shock, she went tumbling into   
the semi-organic bush.  
  
"Baka Usagi!" Chibiusa hissed, crouching down next to the fallen   
Moon Princess. "You'll draw their attention!"  
  
"Who *is* that?" Usagi hissed back, staring at the lighter-haired   
man who was furiously waving a necktie in her beloved's face.  
  
"Kobayashi-san," Chibiusa replied. "He likes Saori-san. Just   
listen."  
  
Usagi looked uneasy. "Are you sure we should be doing this?" she   
murmured, her gaze distant.  
  
"Do you realize who she wanted to give this to, Mamoru?"  
  
Chibiusa felt Usagi's forehead. "Are you sure you're feeling all   
right?"  
  
"Since you have it, I would assume that you were the lucky   
recipient," he replied in the same even voice, but Usagi could tell he   
was growing nervous. There was that slight thread of tension   
reverberating through each muscle she always noticed when he was   
stressed, and his voice had steeled the tiniest amount.  
  
"Yes!" Usagi snapped, suddenly desperate to get out of the area   
and away from the conversation. "I just don't think we should be   
listening to this and I--"  
  
"She meant to give it to you, Mamoru."  
  
Mamoru stilled, obviously trying to process the new information.   
"I didn't know."  
  
"You never do, do you?" Kobayashi snarled contemptuously. "You   
just walk through life never caring about who you left in the   
wreckage."  
  
"What is he talking about?" Chibiusa squawked, but Usagi firmly   
clamped her hand on the little girl's mouth.  
  
It was a heavy accusation, and Mamoru reacted in kind. "Don't   
say things you don't know anything about, Kobayashi," the man snarled   
in a manner distinctly unlike Mamoru. He was getting defensive, Usagi   
realized. And Mamoru never got defensive unless there was some truth   
behind the statement.  
  
"Saori really thought you cared, Mamoru. I tried to tell her not   
to get her hopes up, but she actually thought that when you two slept   
together it meant you CARED."  
  
Chibiusa gasped into Usagi's mouth, her eyes boggling in shock.   
Usagi, for her part, kept quiet, but there was a kind of quiet, cold   
dread in her eyes Chibiusa didn't like.  
  
The little pink-haired girl, for her part, was indignant,   
snorting and scratching like a restrained bull that had just seen red.   
When she looked up at Usagi's stark countenance, however, she calmed   
down in sympathy.  
  
"We were in high school, Kobayashi. Saori's not a stupid girl."   
He turned to walk away, but Kobayashi caught his arm.  
  
Chibiusa's face returned from rice paper-white to something more   
normal, but Usagi's did not change. She stared intently at Mamoru's   
frozen figure, as if trying to discern something.  
  
"How many were there, Chiba? I heard the stories too. They   
broke Saori's heart. How many women were there, anyways? I don't   
think I ever saw you with the same one twice. Do you even *remember*?   
And to watch her added to the list...she didn't deserve to be thrown   
away like that." Kobayashi was practically shaking with suppressed   
rage, but, amazingly, he held onto a sliver of his composure.  
  
Chibiusa flushed cherry red and mumbled something behind Usagi's   
hand. The comment was incoherent and useless at any rate. After   
another moment of struggle, she watched Usagi in mute fascination, her   
horror boiling over in her like an overfull cauldron. Usagi, for her   
part, was perfectly still, and appeared to not be reacting to the news   
that Kobayashi was delivering with inadvertent callousness.  
  
"I can't change the past, Kobayashi. If I could..." For a   
moment, Mamoru's face gained a remote, poignant quality that softened   
Kobayashi's fury. The raven-haired man hung his head for a split   
second, and Usagi could, for just one moment, see a lifetime of regret   
weighing on his shoulders.  
  
Then he snapped back. "I can't. The only thing I can affect is   
the future." He sighed, a little weary.  
  
Kobayashi looked searchingly at the closed planes of Mamoru's   
face. "Fine then," the man denounced dully, "I'll leave you to your   
regrets. But stay away from Saori. She's been hurt enough."   
Kobayashi turned away, each step from Mamoru coming down like a little   
earthquake. "You know Chiba, I don't know who I pity more--you, or   
your poor girlfriend."  
  
For a while Mamoru stood still as a statue, watching Kobayashi's   
retreating back with disinterested eyes. Usagi was too far away to   
read his gaze properly. When the other man was no more than a random   
dot on the horizon, however, he abruptly rubbed at his eyes with the   
back of his hand and turned to walk in the opposite direction.  
  
Chibiusa, for her part, had the sense not to speak aloud until   
Mamoru was safely out of hearing. "What was that about, Usagi-chan?"   
she asked, genuinely concerned for both of them.  
  
Usagi closed her eyes and bit her lip, quietly pressing down   
until she felt a salty, metallic taste spread from the wound. It was   
painful, and probably not a very healthy way of dealing with the   
emotions rocketing through her nervous system, but couldn't bring   
herself to care at the moment. She knew she was scaring Chibiusa, the   
shuttered, frozen reaction she was forced to play at lest she reveal   
too much to the child scared even her.   
  
"Usagi-chan," Chibiusa managed with the wide-eyed half-innocence   
a child of her age possessed, "what were they talking about?" There   
was an urgency and insistence to her voice Usagi had heard before, and   
Usagi wished she could answer the girl honestly.  
  
Instead she finally lifted herself out of the bushes, dusted and   
rearranged her lace-trimmed black tank top and ruffled pink skirt as   
needed, and knelt down to speak to Chibiusa.  
  
"Don't tell Mamo-chan that you heard what you did," Usagi   
whispered fiercely, using the same commanding intensity Chibiusa   
recalled from far away from here, in moments where collapse was   
imminent and every word carried immense weight. It was a loaded,   
difficult promise and they both knew it, but Chibiusa nodded dumbly in   
acquiescence.  
  
"All right." Usagi stood back up and again readjusted her skirt.   
"I know you're curious," she murmured as she picked up the stuffed   
animals tossed aside so carelessly from off the ground and brushed the   
dirt away, "but until I know more, I can't explain very well."  
  
Chibiusa nodded. She could accept that.  
  
"I'll talk to him...can't promise much." Usagi lips turned   
upwards in a bleak not-smile. She was lying; they both knew it. "He's   
not really good at these things."  
  
Memories of home flooded Chibiusa...whispers around court that   
her beloved Papa was a cold, unfeeling man. She'd never understood how   
they could believe that of the man who so deeply loved her Mama and her   
until she'd met his past self. When she'd returned she could   
understand a little better. Endymion was a reserved man, but   
Mamoru...she didn't know what Mamoru was. Except...  
  
'He reminds me of a broken toy sometimes.' Diana had said it,   
not her, but in her heart of hearts she agreed with the kitten. 'Like a   
clockwork doll instead of a person...'  
  
"I won't tell." Chibiusa tried to match Usagi's solemnity,   
perhaps read something besides slight horror in the girl's expression.   
But today her face was blank, cautious to only express appropriate   
emotions.  
  
It was at times like these, the pink-haired girl realized that   
her future mother was not what she seemed.  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
What's the matter with the truth, did I offend your ears?  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Usagi performed every task set forth that afternoon with perfect,   
pointed acuity. She made each step in front of her with weighed   
deliberation, absolute certainty after flashing momentary debate, and   
dead composure. Chibiusa didn't like it, not any of it, from the   
subtle pallor of her cheeks to the subdued tones in which her future   
mother spoke.  
  
They'd walked home immediately, Usagi lost in a haze of thought.   
The little pink-haired girl could practically see her thoughts churning   
through her, rendering the blonde a glassy-eyed doll, marred only by   
the furrow of her brow. Chibiusa sighed. Whatever Usagi was thinking   
about, she clearly wasn't going to volunteer any information.  
  
Now Usagi sat in her room, likely still thinking. Though the   
door was slightly ajar, Chibiusa didn't want to disturb her. She was   
sitting outside in the hall instead, puzzling over a math assignment   
and fighting the impulse to call Mamoru and have him guide her through   
the tedious algebra problems. Making a small, irritated noise, she   
glanced at the slender crack in the door but, after a moment's   
contemplation, returned to her assignment.  
  
"Chibiusa?" Shingo was standing over her, concerned but   
uncertain how to proceed. He was growing, Chibiusa realized suddenly,   
granted almost everyone towered over her, but at that moment he seemed   
gargantuan. She gave him a small, neutral smile as she craned her neck   
to meet his eyes.  
  
"What are you doing sitting in the hall?" Chibiusa saw his eyes   
narrow at her for a moment, then trail over to the not-quite-closed   
door, the questioning look lifting.  
  
He understood, Chibiusa recognized. Somehow he knew what she was   
doing: the twisted loyalty that demanded she keep vigil, the cowardice   
that kept her from crossing the chasm and demanding answers.  
  
"She used to do that a lot..." Shingo commented thoughtfully,   
stroking his chin over the not-stubble on his face, "especially a   
couple years ago. She was always happy after she came out, but...I   
still worried." Shingo gave her a sheepish grin.  
  
"Did you ever find out why?"  
  
Shingo's eyes were far away, filled with some long-past sadness.   
"I didn't need to ask. That was sort of a tough time for the family."   
He shrugged laconically. "But we made it through. She was a lot   
happier after that...and then she...I don't get her sometimes."   
Another shrug. "Some things are better off left alone."  
  
Shingo walked away, and Chibiusa looked down at the undone math   
homework. She really wished she could call Mamoru.  
  
Her tangential line of thinking broke when she heard a clatter in   
the room. Without thinking, she leaped up from her spot and inched the   
door open just enough so she could see.  
  
On the floor, a marred porcelain doll was tossed down carelessly,   
staring at the world through its lifeless, glassy gaze. The force of   
the fall chipped away the china of her face, giving her a sickly   
comical expression. Chibiusa wanted to shudder but suppressed the   
desire.  
  
Usagi took great care lifting a small stack of photos out of the   
careworn shoe box on her bed, and started flipping through the set   
gingerly. Her gaze lingered on particular pictures once in a while;   
others she flipped past quickly.   
  
The door's hinges needed oiling, so when Chibiusa cracked the   
door again to try to get a better view of Usagi's pictures, the older   
girl heard the noise and started. With a shaky expression, she looked   
over at the red eye and tuft of pink hair peeking through the door.  
  
"You might as well come in," Usagi told in a dry, amused voice.   
Chibiusa entered with unusual timidity, shutting the door cautiously   
behind her.  
  
"What are you looking at?" Chibiusa half-asked, half-demanded.   
Even when she was trying to be kind, Chibiusa could never quite banish   
the brash, pushy tone she used with Usagi.  
  
Surprisingly, the blonde gave her a dilute smile, but her eyes   
sparkled with a thin, reedy sort of happiness. "Just looking through   
some old memories," she murmured dreamily, almost forgetting Chibiusa   
was there. Again her gaze touched upon the picture, her eyes dim and   
misty.  
  
Chibiusa looked over Usagi's shoulder. In the picture was Usagi,   
a longer-haired Naru, one or two other girls Chibiusa didn't recognize,   
and a slightly younger girl with bright eyes and a cheeky smile,   
hugging Usagi tightly.  
  
"Who are they?" she asked, pointing at the unknown girls.  
  
"Old friends from grade school," she murmured, smiling softly.   
"Those are Yumeko and Hitomi. They went to another middle school. We   
lost touch after seventh grade..." Usagi smiled fondly as the memories   
she so rarely permitted herself to think about rushed through her.   
"Naru-chan gives me updates now and then. It's nice."  
  
It was a little disturbing to Chibiusa to think about the fact   
that, before she was a Sailor Senshi, Usagi had had other friends,   
other concerns, other priorities...and though on the surface, nothing   
had changed, it felt like a whole other world to her.  
  
"Don't think about it too hard," Usagi cautioned with a real   
smile. "I don't miss those days."  
  
The bitter ring in her voice surprised Chibiusa. She couldn't   
decide whether Usagi meant what she said.  
  
"Those days were...harder then they seemed."  
  
"Who's that one?" Chibiusa distracted Usagi by pointing at the   
younger girl with her arms around Usagi's waist.  
  
A tear fell, the salt water blurring the girl's image. "That   
would be Kana. She's the daughter of my father's best friend from   
college. She was a really sweet girl, but...she died a while back."  
  
"Oh." Delicate subject, apparently. Chibiusa grimaced.  
  
Usagi stared intently at Kana's joyful countenance, immortalized   
in the photo. "Kana-chan was only year below us, even though she looks   
younger. But I learned a lot from her. I learned from her to believe   
in the future, no matter what." Usagi looked away.  
  
"You found some hope," Chibiusa mused quietly.  
  
"Well...it wasn't that simple," Usagi admitted. "When she died,   
for a while I couldn't keep faith. It took becoming Sailormoon and   
learning about my past to change my thinking back."  
  
"Was that everything?" Chibiusa said slyly, looking at Usagi with   
a wicked grim. "After all you found Mamo-chan...that must have helped   
too."  
  
There was a pained look on Usagi's face when Chibiusa said that.   
"That...that helped too."  
  
It was now or never, Chibiusa decided, to force the question.  
"Usagi," Chibiusa asked suspiciously, "did you think that Mamo-chan..."  
  
Usagi was so pale when Chibiusa began talking that the child cut   
off her query mid-sentence. With shaky, pale lips, Usagi opened her   
mouth to reply.  
  
"I didn't ask," she whispered softly, "because I didn't want to   
know the answer."  
  
In other words, Chibiusa realized, Usagi had long suspected   
that Mamoru was not forthcoming about his past. Usagi didn't seem   
inclined to keep talking about it, so Chibiusa didn't ask any further.   
From the shuttered expression on Usagi's face, however, Chibiusa could   
tell that Usagi's feelings on the topic ran deep.  
  
Usagi flipped to the next picture and began to talk freely about   
the people and places captured on the 4-by-6 glossy paper: favorite   
foods, funny stories, memories that were no longer dwelled upon but had   
made her into who she was.  
  
Chibiusa, for her part, was fascinated by Usagi's jovial stories   
and the way she told them. Once the ball was rolling, Usagi was a   
fantastic storyteller: her naturally expressive voice and genuine   
fondness for the subjects of her pictures blended into an amusing,   
interesting set of monologues. Chibiusa paid rapt attention, lost in   
the familiarity of the moment--of the mother who, she bragged to all   
her friends, told the best stories in the world.  
  
As the stack dwindled, however, Kana's face appeared   
increasingly, and the former cheer ebbed away from Usagi's voice.   
Chibiusa placed a small, comforting hand on Usagi's arm, and the blonde   
looked down, smiling at the girl who was so remarkably like her.  
  
"The Tezuka family was in a car accident right before I started   
the eighth grade," she explained without prompting. "Kana-chan and her   
mother died."  
  
"Ah." Chibiusa looked at the last picture, where Usagi and   
Kana's hands were lightly touching. The only other occupant of the   
space had his arm wrapped around Usagi's waist, hugging her to him, his   
chin resting between her trademark odango. He had a cheeky grin on his   
tanned, handsome face, much like Kana's genki expression only older and   
more masculine, and Usagi's other hand clasped the arm around her   
waist.  
  
"And...who's that?" Chibiusa looked at the laughing gray-eyed boy   
who held Usagi so possessively.  
  
"Haruhiko..." Usagi's voice dropped, "...just someone I used to   
know."  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
and all my innocence is wasted on the dead and dreaming  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Tsukino Chibiusa never knew what to make of the endless stream of   
revelations in her life. Every day was a million bits of new   
information to process, some things small, many more earth shaking.   
But before today, she'd always known how to deal with those moments.  
  
That's why she was sitting there, on a pillow in the middle of a   
warm, wood-paneled room in the Hikawa Jinja while she waited for Mamoru   
to come pick her up and help her study her math. As she watched, Rei   
boredly tended the fire, Ami was playing with an "extra-curricular"   
program on her laptop, and Makoto and Minako had raided Rei's enviable   
manga collection. No one spoke, but the girls were simply enjoying   
being in each other's presence without thinking about youma or entrance   
exams.  
  
*Haruhiko...just someone I used to know.*  
  
The words didn't sit well with her. She may have been young, but   
she certainly wasn't stupid. The tone in Usagi's voice was akin to the   
one she used when she talked about Mamoru. After the scare with Saori,   
Chibiusa didn't want to think about Usagi ever having been with someone   
else. She remembered the obvious love between her parents in the   
future, so thick and vibrant it hummed like a plucked guitar string,   
versus the almost sickly relationship of the present. At times she   
didn't know which one of her future parents she wanted to hit more.   
  
Usagi was supposed to arrive in another half-hour, she'd had a   
meeting of the manga drawing club she'd recently joined and had   
cheekily pointed out to the other girls, "At least it isn't detention."   
Luna grumbled, but everyone else, including Rei, capitulated quickly.  
  
Now they were just waiting.  
  
"Where are Luna and Artemis and Diana?" Chibiusa ventured,   
uncertain of how to proceed with her conversation but certain that she   
didn't want the two guardians to hear.  
  
"Ami gave Luna a program that she's working on to detect people   
with powerful dream mirrors before the Amazon Trio does," Makoto   
explained, not even looking up at the pink-haired child. "They went to   
hash out the details and run some preliminary tests of the sensors.   
Why, is something the matter?"   
  
"Nothing's wrong," she protested.  
  
That was the mistake. Rei, hearing the force of the denial,   
looked lazily up at Chibiusa. "Are you sure everything all right,   
chibi? You look a little unnerved."  
  
Chibiusa forced herself to inhale properly and decided now was a   
better time than never. "Have any of you heard of a Tezuka Haruhiko?  
  
The room came at a standstill. Manga fell, typing stopped, eyes   
fixed upon the girl sitting in the center.  
  
"How do you know him?" Minako broke the silence first, keeping   
her expression neutral.  
  
"Well..." Chibiusa bit her lip and mentally remembered Usagi had   
only made her promise not to tell Mamo-chan. Technically telling the   
girls was all right, even if Usagi squawked about it later. The girl   
wouldn't have blamed her; this was a highly personal topic, after all.   
"Usagi-chan was really upset because she heard this conversation   
between Kobayashi-san and Mamo-chan about how he'd slept with all these   
girls and..."  
  
"What?"  
  
Chiba Mamoru was standing the doorway, eyes blank. Minako   
cringed, and Rei looked warily at the stricken raven-haired man.  
  
Ami was the first to regain her composure, unsurprisingly. "Is   
everything all right, Mamoru-san?"  
  
"She...you...heard that?"  
  
All four girls breathed a sigh of relief at Mamoru didn't catch.   
The last thing they needed was Mamoru asking questions about Haruhiko   
that they couldn't answer without betraying Usagi...  
  
"She HEARD what he said?"  
  
Chibiusa nodded gamely, tears forming in her eyes. "How could   
you do all those things?" she asked, tone remarkably scarce of   
accusation.  
  
Mamoru dealt with this blow the only way he knew how after   
nineteen years.  
  
He bolted.  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
dead actors, vacant lies--over and over and over again she cries  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
She knew.  
  
The words hit him like a punch to the gut. Mamoru struggled to   
breathe in, trying to understand why, had she known, she hadn't   
mentioned anything to him. He couldn't conceive of the idea she might   
be all right with knowing the things he had done--there were times he   
himself could barely tolerate it. He exhaled harshly and noisily,   
trying to balance himself physically and collect his thoughts back   
together.  
  
*Fix this.* The order rang through his mind; somehow he knew   
Usagi could NOT have just let this go. She must have been afraid to   
confront him, he rationed immediately, feared upsetting him, perhaps?  
  
He hated his past, the blank expanse of years that stretched   
behind him, taunting him with their base activity and aimless purpose.   
Finding Usagi, and his life with her, was one of the greatest things   
that had ever happened in his life.  
  
And yet the past always seemed to come back to haunt him.  
  
"Mamoru-san, WAIT!" Hino Rei was running after him in an   
unusually undignified manner, her long raven hair whipping around like   
a sheet. She looked slightly panicked.  
  
"Rei-chan...is something...?"  
  
"Was it true?" the pushy priestess demanded, glaring him down   
with her vibrant plum-colored eyes.  
  
What was there to say? He remained silent, confirming what they   
both knew.  
  
Rei looked mildly scornful. "I always thought you were better   
than that, Mamoru-san. Guess I was wrong."  
  
"I don't need your condemnation, Rei."  
  
"Too bad." Her mild scorn was rapidly evolving into full-on   
revulsion. If she'd spat on the sidewalk at that moment, Mamoru could   
not have brought himself to be surprised. "I'm sorry, Mamoru-san, but   
the rest of us get tired of having to pick up the pieces every time you   
break her heart. And this is definitely going that direction."  
  
He looked away. "What if I told you I would come clean with   
her?"  
  
Rei's eyes flared momentarily before returning to her usual   
violet. "Is that what you're planning to do?"  
  
Mamoru paced away a few steps, lost in thought. "What if I told   
you I was tired of secrets and just wanted to clear the air for once?"  
  
"I wouldn't believe you," Rei said flatly.  
  
He smiled, the expression thin and a little cold.  
  
"And I'd also tell you to use a little discretion for once," Rei   
snapped. "Follow her lead on this one. She'll feel a lot more   
comfortable if you do that."  
  
"I will," he mumbled, trying to get Rei's searing gaze off of   
him. Mamoru half-stumbled away, trying to sort through the myriad   
emotions rushing through his consciousness, make sense of Rei's cryptic   
commentary.  
  
As he walked away, Rei murmured, "Wish I could believe that."  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------   
I'm all about denial, but can't denial let me believe?  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
When Usagi arrived the Crown Fruit Parlor at the appropriate time   
that day, Mamoru was trying to shake his excessive nervousness by   
slamming down a cup of coffee.  
  
Mamoru was not very good at dealing with his nerves.  
  
Motoki looked over at his longtime friend and simultaneous source   
of frustration and amusement.  
  
"Hot date?" he teased gently, flashing his trademark grin.  
  
Mamoru turned to stone.  
  
"Ah...never mind," Motoki sighed, going back to wiping the   
tables. Sometimes, Motoki had learned, the best avenue was to not pry   
at all.  
  
Mamoru watched the door, gaze fixed, until the bell on the door   
rang a certain way--she made it sound different, somehow--and Usagi   
strode in, possessed with her usual artless grace. And it was   
certainly artless. Streaming blond hair whisked cheerily around her   
as she settled into the booth, she waved to Motoki, who was already   
preparing a drink for her.  
  
"You called?" She was having a difficult time keeping her   
demeanor upbeat. Unazuki delivered a soda with a wink and a grin, and   
Usagi sipped it happily, grateful for another focal point.  
  
Mamoru clutched the coffee cup, ignoring the fact his hand was   
burning. "Usa-ko...we need to talk."  
  
She snapped to attention post-haste, dread pooling in her   
stomach.  
  
"I found out that yesterday you may have...heard some things."  
  
Usagi made a face.  
  
"I'm going to kill that pink-haired yamhead."  
  
"It was an accident!" Mamoru protested, defending the girl. "I   
walked in at the wrong time."  
  
After making a mental note to ask one of the others for details   
later, she smiled brightly and vowed, for once in her life, to lie   
effectively.  
  
She patted his scalded hands, eyes shining with love. "Mamo-  
chan, I don't care about your past. As long as I know you love me,   
then I'm happy. And I know you do."  
  
This was what she got, after all the lies, the secrets, the   
drama. She deserved an out just this once. And Mamoru *did* love her.   
She had to protect him just as he always did her.  
  
He wasn't going to be able to handle the truth.  
  
"I understand," he murmured, touched by her 'sincere' love and   
affection towards him. How was he so blessed to find someone who would   
accept him unconditionally, love him despite all of his faults?  
  
But he still had to do this. The weight he had carried for so   
long still drove a chasm between them. Laying it down once and for all   
was the only way he knew to bridge that gap. It would be his closure,   
his chance to finally fall fully and wholly into the love they were   
supposed to share.  
  
"Since we've never been intimate before this," Mamoru said   
quietly, "and it's hard to understand where I'm coming from unless   
you've--"  
  
Usagi pressed a finger to his lips. "I understand," she mumured,   
"and I think it's better this way, Mamo-chan. Leave your past behind.  
Aren't I your future?"  
  
He gave her the quirky grin she loved so, his eyes alight. "Hai,   
Usa-ko, you are."  
  
"Then problem solved." She tried to match that same cheeky   
grin. It would be worth it in the end to do this, Usagi decided, no   
matter how painful it was for both of them. His feelings were her first   
concern.  
  
If only it were that simple, Mamoru wished grimly.   
Unfortunately, the years of hopelessness and mindless activity had   
taken their toll on him, and he was desperate, compelled to explain   
away the filth that had accumulated inside him. He wanted to believe in   
her, to have faith she could make all of this go away, that he would   
be clean and whole and wonderful for her, and slag off the lingering   
emotions that made it so difficult to be with her without a deep sense   
of guilt.  
  
"Usa-ko, I still..."  
  
In a rather bold public display of affection, Usagi quickly   
pressed her lips against his, effectively cutting off his monologue.   
Mamoru sat there, gap-mouthed, as she pulled away from him.  
  
"You don't understand," she explained levelly, as if to a small   
child, "don't tell me this. I love you no matter what, and these   
things are clearly painful for you. You don't have to tell me and hurt   
yourself. I won't do that to you."  
  
Before he could protest, she had skipped out the door.  
  
When Usagi got outside, she wiped her mouth clean, not quite   
certain whose taste she was so determined to rid herself of that day.   
The hot tears falling down her cheeks did the rest.  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
why if this is nothing, I'm finding it so hard to dismiss?  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Three days had gone by, and nothing had changed about Usagi, at   
least as far as Mamoru could tell. She didn't seem upset or angry   
about the discovery, and treated him as if nothing had changed.  
  
It bothered him to no end. Part of him was grateful for Usagi's   
perfect acceptance of him, and yet...it struck him as very out of   
character for her. To not be jealous, or insecure, or...anything.  
  
He watched her, trying to find anything that might clue him into   
how she was acting, but nothing came. With a sigh, he was about ready   
to give up on the matter. Perhaps she truly WAS okay with his tainted   
past. That would be wonderful, but Mamoru was a cynic by nature and   
hard-pressed to believe in fairytales.  
  
Then again, his entire relationship with Usagi was a sort of   
fairytale--Prince and Princess tragically separated, only to be   
reunited in another world. Even he doubted the plausibility of it   
sometimes.  
  
But he was here, sitting in an arcade, living the 'fairytale.'   
A soiled and battered one, but a 'fairytale' nonetheless.  
  
He barely noticed the bell ring and the excited chatter of three   
girls, two of which were ready to flirt with Motoki until he broke down   
'and gave them free food. Ami's nose was buried in a physics book, but   
she occasionally popped up to make comments, trying to impede Makoto and   
Minako in their quest for free nourishment.  
  
"Usagi-chan was sort of quiet today, wasn't she?"  
  
Mamoru's ears pricked.  
  
"Hush, Mina-chan. We'll talk later." Makoto glanced over to   
Mamoru's booth.  
  
"Right," Minako laughed nervously. "We will."  
  
When Usagi tromped in soon after, admittedly quieter than usual   
but still cheery, Mamoru listened intently for *some* sign other than   
her lack of bubbly chatter. She smiled and laughed as if nothing were   
wrong.  
  
Wanting to push the limit just a little, he approached her,   
steadying himself before asking, "Usa-ko? How are you doing today?"  
  
"Mamo-chan!" she bounded into his arms; he had to brace himself   
to accept the embrace. Usagi snuggled closer before realizing people   
were watching and wisely decided to pull away. She beamed brightly at   
him, and he wondered why he'd ever believed anything could be wrong.   
"I'm happy today! I think I might have passed my math test for once!"  
  
Then for a fraction of a moment he saw a shadow skitter across   
her eyes, and was reminded of his plan.  
  
"That's great, Usa-ko," he said affectionately, honestly glad for   
her. "I'm proud of you."  
  
She gave him a sweet smile, and he felt the vein in his throat   
flutter.  
  
Minako looked at Usagi with raised eyebrows, Makoto coughed, and   
Ami stayed with her book. Motoki was confused, but he kept his mouth   
closed.  
  
Mamoru leaned in, determined to capture a semblance of privacy.   
"Are you sure everything's all right?"  
  
Her smile was practically painted on her face. "Of course," she   
whispered to him.  
  
Minako's eyes narrowed.  
  
"Are you really?" That smile chilled him to his bones. It   
looked like something on a porcelain doll rather than a human.  
  
"ACK! I just remembered! I have to go help my mom clean the   
house! She's going to kiiiiiii--" Before the sentence was finished,   
Usagi was out the door.  
  
It was Ami, amazingly, who smirked at the slammed door, watching   
the bells that still jingled violently in Usagi's wake, and said, "Well   
it wasn't completely obvious that was going happen." Makoto stifled a   
laugh at the unexpected sass from the blue-haired genius. Ami, for her   
part, went back to her book, but her sharp eyes kept a subtle vigil.  
  
Minako was worried, but she didn't say as much. Being the senshi   
of love may have given her a knack for understanding relationships, but   
Usagi's and Mamoru's was not one she enjoyed interfering in on a   
regular basis. Too issue-laden for her taste, and she wanted to   
respect their privacy.   
  
Motoki shook his head, still bemused. "You two are quite the   
roller-coaster, aren't you?" he commented to Mamoru.  
  
Mamoru shrugged laconically. "She...found out about my past   
activities." He put a casual spin on it, trying to hide the fact he   
felt as if razors were slowly hacking his internal organs to pieces.  
  
The blond man let out a low whistle. "Guess she wasn't   
thrilled."  
  
"Actually, she's weirdly fine with it," he commented, trying to   
put the pieces together in his mind.  
  
Motoki was pensive. "Well...it could be she doesn't feel like   
she has the right to judge."  
  
"The right to judge?" She certainly did. God knows he felt   
sordid enough; she had every right to express digust at his actions.  
  
"I don't know...but especially after Tezuka-san--AUUUGH!"  
  
Minako had slapped Motoki upside the head with her purse while   
Makoto had gone for the groin; both clearly derived some pleasure from the   
act. Makoto was literally seething, and Motoki backed off immediately,   
fearing further confrontations with their combined wrath.  
  
But the mistake was already made. Mamoru looked at his best   
friend, writhing in pain, then back at the three girls who were watching   
him with wide eyes.  
  
"Who's Tezuka-san?"  
  
Makoto, Minako, and Ami all exchanged long glances, none certain   
as to what they could say. "Ah, Mamoru-san...you'd better ask Usagi-  
chan about that."  
  
Mamoru's lightning-speed mind had already made the connection,   
although his heart screamed a denial. He was already out the door, going   
after Usagi, armed with the new information.  
  
Makoto had her head in her hands. "Usagi hadn't told him yet?"  
  
"No," Ami scowled. "She was looking for the right time.   
Remember, it was hard enough for her just telling the four of us, and   
we'd already assured her we wouldn't censure her."  
  
"So much work, completely wasted..." Makoto lightly punched the   
countertop.  
  
Motoki paled visibly. "What just happened?"  
  
"Motoki-san," Minako scowled melodramatically, "for such a smart   
man, you can be damned stupid sometimes."  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
and nothing fuels a good flirtation like anger and need and desperation  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
"Usa-ko, WAIT!"  
  
Usagi stopped when she heard Mamoru's voice behind her, his voice   
slightly strangled with the stress of physical exertion and emotion.   
The tone was a little rough, and somehow she knew what was coming. Her   
stomach roiled like an earthquake in response.  
  
Mamoru's eyes were narrowed, pointedly focused on Usagi's   
flushed, anxious face. Her eyes were clouded yet intense, not allowing   
him to see what she was thinking. Part of him screamed to turn back   
here and now, before he delved too deeply, and simply let it go.  
  
If he didn't however, he knew he would always be tormented with   
prickling questions, and there was nothing Chiba Mamoru loathed more   
than uncertainty. He had spent his life in a haze of doubt; Usagi and   
everything she represented was the first concrete, tangible point in   
his life. Losing his last bastion of stability could very well be his   
undoing.  
  
So, he foolishly opened his mouth.  
  
"Are you certain that you're all right with what you heard?" he   
murmured, moving closer into her personal space. She squirmed   
appropriately, but her facial expression retained the poignant doll-  
like glaze.  
  
Seeing it was her turn to react, she smiled insincerely and   
wrapped her arms around his lean waist. With her false expression she   
nuzzled her cheek against his solid chest and closing her eyes. Usagi   
inhaled deeply, languorously, absorbing his warmth, his scent, the feel   
of his skin...right before she lied to him once again.  
  
"Of course I'm all right, Mamo-chan," she murmured with a   
saccharine voice and a charming lilt. "I know you love me more than   
anything."  
  
God help him, but for a fraction of an instant, he let himself   
believe it. He reveled in the affectionate gesture, letting the   
feeling of love and perfect acceptance rush over him for a singular   
glorious expanse of time before shattering the spell.  
  
"Who's Tezuka-san?"  
  
Within an instant, he felt as if Usagi were a marble statue   
wrapped around him, the heated fervor in her embrace draining   
torturously away from him. With stiff, jerking motions, she pulled her   
arms away and wrapped them about her stomach, refusing to look up at   
him.  
  
"Who told you about him?" she questioned in a low, slightly   
dangerous voice.   
  
"Motoki hinted at it," he replied coldly and humorlessly, arms   
crossed against his chest. "He said you might think you had no right   
to judge. Why would he say that?"  
  
She closed her eyes and silently prayed he didn't say what   
she knew had been long in coming.  
  
"Did you sleep with him, Usa-ko?"  
  
All of the color drained from Usagi's face as if someone had   
punctured her melatonin-producing glands. Her eyes were china-blue   
orbs, wide and frightened as she stared in horror at him.  
  
Oh Gods, it was true. His heart slammed in his chest, but he   
couldn't manage to reply. As much as he ached to cry, scream, force her   
to take it back, nothing seemed to function properly. Even his tongue   
felt like a block lodged in sawdust.  
  
"How dare you accuse me," she snapped dangerously, sounding like   
thrashing whipcord, "when you were with so many girls by your own   
admission!"  
  
"You could have at least told me!" he snarled, her anger causing   
his to surface and pull him from his frozen stupor.  
  
"And did you bother to say anything to me about YOUR past?"  
  
Mamoru deflated like a balloon. Closing his eyes, he mumbled, "I   
wanted to, so badly. But I didn't want to hurt you. I'm not the   
person I was then and--" He couldn't continue. An overwhelming urge to   
hold her close to him, reaffirm she was there with him rather than the   
shadow starting to form in his mind, surfaced, and he was too mentally   
displaced to do anything but submit to it.  
  
"You can't protect me," she whispered furiously, nonetheless   
letting him pull her into a loose hug. Usagi truly despised the constant   
need for his comfort and love, particularly when she was upset, even if   
he was the cause of her pain. "Not from everything. You should just tell   
me the truth."  
  
He rested his head between two odango. "It's not that easy."  
  
She sighed once before pushing him vehemently away from her.   
"Furthermore, he was before I ever met you!" she protested, still livid   
but succumbing to tears. "I thought you'd be upset! And you ARE, so   
don't act like I was wrong!"  
  
Mamoru stared beyond her, into somewhere she did not understand.   
"You're right." He looked her straight in the eye, determined to make   
her understand once and for all. "I just...please let me tell you the   
truth."  
  
It was a more difficult request than he knew. Things she didn't   
want to think about, obligations she would make if she let him speak,   
motives she could sense lurking below the surface--  
  
And the genuine suffering of the man she loved.  
  
Usagi couldn't afford to be selfish. Two years ago she had been   
selfish and held herself back the tiniest bit, even during her most   
intimate moments. She couldn't let Mamoru fade into the distance,   
needing her. She gave her love freely and openly to him, never   
begrudging him the lack of recompense, because he was the one who made   
the ache in her heart go away--the one that had threatened to consume   
her with its constant, jarring agony.  
  
If he needed this, then she would play along.  
  
"Let's go to your apartment and talk, Mamo-chan."  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
well, there's a reason it came to this tonight  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Chiba Mamoru went through life with a Jekyll-and-Hyde mentality   
that could simultaneously fascinate and aggravate--at very least, he   
gave the distinct impression that he only followed most rules because   
it suited him. He was so perfectly refined, so utterly self-contained   
that Usagi had long stopped expecting Mamoru to ever open up to her.   
Low standards made love easier to bear; if she never demanded anything   
of him then she was pleasantly surprised when he did toss her a bone   
now and then. It was just enough to keep her there with him.  
  
Sometimes she wondered why she bothered with Chiba Mamoru,   
following him like a puppy and wagging her tail when he gave her an   
occasional treat. Love was the obvious answer.  
  
Love . . .  
  
As the word echoed through her consciousness, she had to push the   
dark thoughts that threatened to break the surface far out of reach.  
  
He paced anxiously around the room, frantically searching for the   
words to describe the years before he had met her and the heady weight   
of mindless human interaction had lifted from him. He closed his eyes   
and leaned his forehead on his fingers, still looking for a way.  
  
Usagi sighed heavily, leaning back on the overstuffed cream   
couch. "Do you want me to ask you?" she queried quietly, almost   
harshly, trying to make this as comfortable for him as possible. Or   
maybe she just wanted to get through the ordeal and move on with their   
relationship?  
  
Mamoru looked uncertainly at Usagi, biting his lip softly as he   
reflected over the tone she'd used with him. Part of him begged to   
turn back, to run away and hide, to act as if none of this had ever   
happened and simply *move on*--but deep down, he longed to tell her.   
He wanted to explain to her, maybe to himself, why he was the way he   
had been and how when she had come along, everything completely changed.  
  
No matter how unsettling having someone know these things about   
him was, he needed this. The absolute intimacy he had longed for his   
entire life would become possible if he could just clear the air. He   
was so certain of that, he could taste it in his mouth--sweet, but a   
little salty, maybe a bit bitter for all the time he had lost.  
  
He took a deep breath. "Maybe it would be best if you asked me   
something. I don't really know where to begin. Maybe you should ask   
me something."  
  
She looked away, wincing before asking, "How many were there?"  
  
Mamoru was struck by the fact he didn't actually *know*. He hung   
his head in defeat, waiting for the backlash.  
  
Usagi groaned and smacked her forehead, forcing down her growing   
disgust. "Rough estimate?"  
  
He chewed his sore lip thoughtfully before replying, "Probably   
more than twenty."  
  
"More than TWENTY?" Usagi stared at him, mouth agape. She fought   
a wave of nausea down at the thought. "You made love to over twenty   
women?"  
  
"Don't call it that!" he hissed fiercely, vehement in his   
protest. Usagi's mouth closed in shock. "None of those women meant   
anything to me, Usa-ko. I mean that." As if offering himself as a   
token of amends, he sat down on the floor next to the sofa, almost   
prostrate, clearly miserable at any rate.  
  
Above him, she shook her head, but his angle made it impossible   
to see. "You can't tell me that. I know you, Mamo-chan. You're too   
practical. It had to mean something to you." She didn't want to   
believe it hadn't. Usagi knew who really could have that many partners   
and none of them would matter; they were the type of people Usagi   
pitied above all others. "It always means something."  
  
He nodded ever so faintly, agreeing with her assessment and   
hating her knowledge of the matter. "What I meant to say was that I   
didn't love any of them--unless you count what I felt for Saori as   
love, I guess." He hung his head at that last statement.  
  
"There's a whole other topic," Usagi muttered. "You could've   
told me she was more than a 'friend,' Mamo-chan." What an idiot she had   
been, innocently believing that Mamoru and Saori were 'just friends.'   
It was easy to believe in Mamoru when she thought he was telling her the   
truth, but he had deliberately told her 'an old friend' had visited, and   
Usagi hated it when people lied to her.  
  
Half the time it seemed like all Mamoru ever did was lie. It was   
  
  
With delicate motion, she reached out to stroke his head, itching   
to run his fingers through his hair; when they touched, however, he   
flinched and wrenched skittishly. Usagi pulled her hand back, wishing   
he could simply stop this torture and let them drown in mindless kisses   
and ecstasy.  
  
It worked once before, in a whole other world.  
  
"It started when I was sixteen," he murmured as he began his   
story, "I'd just entered high school. I'd been out of the orphanage   
for over two years, living on a stipend from a trust set up by a   
relative before the accident." He sighed. "I was at the top of my   
class, but it all felt so...empty."  
  
There was a breaking, poignant tone to his voice that Usagi   
recognized instinctively. Mamoru had no need to explain the emotion to   
her because she herself had felt the chill.  
  
How deep their connection went, yet they were still driven to do   
this to themselves and to each other. If they weren't careful now,   
they may very well spend their lives wallowing in their laments.  
  
"I ignored it at first, just like everything else," he continued,   
breaking her thoughts, dragging the words out himself, "but after a   
while it just got to be too much. There were days I literally did not   
want to get out of bed, I felt that hopeless. I...I needed you then."   
He closed his eyes and fought back the familiar rush of pain the   
memories of his past brought.  
  
It was one of the most stunning admissions Usagi had ever heard   
during the course of their relationship. She sat back, slightly   
stunned, riddled with guilt at the longing in his tone. Though she   
longed to wrap her arms around him and reassure him the past was behind   
him and her future was with him and him alone, she restrained.  
  
"There was a girl. Looking for someone to keep her company for a   
night," he explained cynically. He wouldn't utter her name here; it   
would taint the air Usagi breathed. "I wanted to touch someone that   
night. I don't know what it was...this *need* for physical contact.   
She was willing, and so we just...did it."  
  
They just 'did it.' She had spent the past year and a half   
wondering how Mamoru would react to the idea that she hadn't saved   
herself for him, guilty at the fact she didn't regret what she had done   
with Haruhiko, and he 'did it.' Oh, she was aware of a thousand double   
standards and backwards mentalities, but hearing this cheapened him in   
her eyes, and it echoed back to her.  
  
"It was nice to be close to someone for once," he reflected   
softly. "For a few minutes...the hole went away. I wanted that   
feeling again. Blissful oblivion, I suppose. Even though it was   
fleeting, I still wanted it. As often as I could get it."  
  
Loneliness was a powerful motivator, Usagi supposed. Even   
someone like Mamoru could throw caution to the wind and take refuge in   
the human touch. Touch was lies, it was easy to convey false emotion   
through touch, to make the other believe what you wanted them to   
believe. Words were not so easy to falsify.  
  
"It was at a high school graduation party that I was with   
Saori...all through high school, people had been saying we'd make the   
perfect couple. I was drinking...not much, just enough so that my   
judgment was a little impaired. I really hurt her," he murmured   
miserably. "After that I tried to limit things, and I haven't touched   
a drop of alcohol since. But I couldn't stop...until I met you. I   
wanted you, but I was afraid..."  
  
He closed his eyes. "Because...you made me want to be better."  
  
The statement was heartfelt and absolutely true. It was a   
shocking, somewhat vulnerable admission, and Usagi realized at this   
moment Mamoru was putting a great deal of trust in her--something she   
had longed for for most of their relationship.  
  
Usagi crossed her fingers and quietly hoped she didn't violate   
that within the next twenty minutes.  
  
When she looked at Mamoru, who had stood up and was walking   
around the small area again, she knew he intrinsically understood what   
she herself had been thinking, only his wish was far more fervent.  
  
His approach was sudden and she was a little stunned when he   
tilted her chin and kissed her ardently, his heated passion channeled   
into the force of his lips on hers. Hungrily she responded, as anxious   
for his touch as he was for hers.  
  
After a minute, he reluctantly pulled back, leaving them both   
gasping and tremulous.  
  
"Feel that?" he demanded hoarsely. "That was more emotion than I   
ever felt for any of those women at climax."  
  
But Usagi still turned away.  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
we tripped on the urge to feel alive, but now I'm struggling to survive  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Her eyes half-closed, shading their expression from him. "Well I   
guess I should return the favor now, right?"  
  
Mamoru gazed searchingly at her, noting the tiny droplets that   
threatened to fall from her eyes, the way each of her hands clenched at   
the other, the still, unblinking pose that locked her away from him.   
Try as he might, he could not conquer the horrible feeling of loathing   
for himself and for Usagi for letting these secrets lie buried in the   
ground. With a shaking, painful intake of air, he nodded, affirming   
her suspicions.  
  
He wanted to hold her, to convince himself that she was still   
here with him and that the spirit of the nameless, faceless lover in   
the past did not still haunt her, haunt *them*, but she stood up and   
went over towards the window, gazing at the graceful sliver of the   
crescent moon.  
  
"Haruhiko was the son of my father's college roommate," she began   
in a deadpan, emotion only rising to caress the name gently, "I'd known   
him since I was in diapers. He...he and I did everything together."   
She wiped at her face with a fierce whipping motion, the force causing   
the sleeve to leave a faint red mar. "Even though he was two years   
older, he always played with me. Told me I was his favorite friend and   
more special to him than anyone else. I...I'm insecure. I needed   
that. Still do, I guess." She giggled nervously, blushing softly at   
she looked over at Mamoru.  
  
Already his heart was sinking, Mamoru realized. Had he ever said   
any of those things to Usagi? The faceless ghost slowly morphed into a   
daunting specter before his glazed eyes. He fought down the scorching   
sense of jealousy and possessiveness that threatened to conquer his   
ration.  
  
"It was enough when I was younger to just be with him," she   
murmured as her monologue took on a dreamy quality, "because all my   
life there was this hole in my heart that could never be filled. I was   
always looking for someone...I was looking for you, but I didn't know   
it yet. But when I got older, it stopped being enough. Those were   
rough times...I was so desperate to touch anyone, to fill that. Just   
like you, I guess. We aren't so different."  
  
"Yes we are," Mamoru hissed, ice and steel shot through his   
system. "We are." He didn't want to believe that the motivations that   
had brought him to wash his soul in filth were the ones Usagi shared.  
  
The strange, strangled sound brought Usagi's attention back on   
him for one moment. She reached out and placed delicate fingertips to   
his jaw, lightly tracing the line. In unconscious appreciation, Mamoru   
closed his eyes, raven locks falling over the fanned crescents, and   
nuzzled her hand very faintly, silently reveling in the way her   
most insignificant touch made his skin tingle as if it were a whole   
other living organism, wondering why it couldn't always be like this   
between them.  
  
"We aren't," she assured him fiercely, "even if you deny it."  
  
When she pulled back, it felt as if a chill mistral had blown   
through his spirit. Wetting her lips, Usagi continued her tale. "And   
then one day when I was 12, we were on vacation, the two families...and   
Haru smiled and pulled me into this abandoned field. I remember it so   
well...I can still smell the wildflowers if I try." She smiled   
appreciatively and hugged herself, rocking with the force of the   
memory. "And he told me...that he loved me, and asked me if maybe I   
could kiss him?"  
  
"What did you say?" Mamoru choked.  
  
"Of course I said yes. And for a while, that was enough. He   
filled the hole...his love was that strong and that pure. I was so   
grateful for that. He wanted to be near me all time...it was so   
wonderful...even after I started middle school with him, he and I were   
always together. I loved to touch him, not just kisses," she started   
excitedly, falling into the pattern of the long-lost story, "but just   
little things like brushing his hand against mine, quick hugs, patting   
his shoulder..." Her face darkened. "But one day, it wasn't enough   
again."  
  
Mamoru looked...dead. As if there were some doll-like replica of   
himself rather than a breathing, existing human with Usagi. He was so   
pallid he nearly blended in with the stark walls of his apartment. He   
rubbed his temples, trying to force himself to feel again, to escape   
the horrible self-made prison within which he now writhed.  
  
"Haruhiko had been suggesting we take our relationship to the   
next level for a while," Usagi told him, a little uncertain of the tact   
necessary during this phase of the explanation. "Before I was   
uncertain, but that day I was desperate to fill the hole. I said yes."  
  
"And?"  
  
"And for that moment, I think I forgot there'd ever been a void,"   
she told him directly. "It was beautiful the first time, even with the   
terrible pain. Neither of us really were sure, so it wasn't perfect...but   
I felt *loved* like I never had before. That was the night of my   
fourteenth birthday."  
  
Her fourteenth birthday? No wonder she'd been so upset when   
he thought he'd forgotten. After how special it had been the year   
before...Mamoru was grateful that at least this time he had an excuse,   
but that didn't really assauge the burgeoning guilt.  
  
But the second time that night...the spell was broken." She sounded   
bitter, mildly disillusioned. "And the time after that as well." Her   
expression fell. "We started to drift from each other. He was still good   
to me, but he wouldn't touch me like before...and he was always sad when   
he looked at me. All sorts of stuff was happening at home; I came home   
every day and cried...and then came the car accident. His sister and   
her mother died. Tezuka-san changed jobs and took Haruhiko with him to   
Hokkaido for a change of scenery." Usagi's eyes dimmed. "We just lost   
touch. After everything we'd shared, I just...let him go."  
  
He was shaking with a million pent-up emotions: fear, anxiety,   
rage, desire, love...Mamoru turned away, embarrassed of his weakness,   
terrified of his thoughts, more so of the potential courses of action   
flooding his brain as Usagi watched him.  
  
Because that was the moment he finally understood the real reason   
she'd never told him about Tezuka Haruhiko.  
  
"You loved him," he whispered painfully, the words pulled from   
him like a needle sewing thread.  
  
Usagi sat back down on the couch, suddenly thoughtful. "I did,"   
she confessed, girlish and sweet. "I think a part of me always will.   
But that doesn't mean you aren't the most important thing in my life,   
Mamo-chan! YOU'RE the one who filled the void." She smiled a real   
smile, happy to have the weighty secret from her chest, and stood up   
again. Rushing to his side, she wrapped his arms around his waist,   
holding him close as she leaned into his back. Mamoru stilled at the   
tender, affectionate gesture, still paralyzed in shock and anguish.   
"You're the one who I was waiting for all those years."  
  
As long as she had Mamoru, Usagi knew, she could be happy.   
Without him, she was nothing but a broken, empty half. Even if Haruhiko   
had been able to make her happy for a while, deep down she knew the   
feeling never would have lasted. Only Mamoru could compare, make her   
dream to finally wake up without the dull searing sensation each morning   
finally come true. She treasured him for that, even if it was entirely   
unconscious on his part, and she was determined not to let him drift   
away like she'd let Haruhiko do.  
  
*I did...I think a part of me always will.* Inside his mind the   
words beat a dull, heady rhythm, pounding on his head and heart until   
his innards begged for emotional release--a scream, a tear, something   
to liberate the misery building inside of him and let his weary spirit   
rest for once.  
  
She was supposed to be...after all the years of silent torment   
she was supposed to fill the hole inside him, make him complete, love   
him wholly and singlemindedly, the light at the end of the tunnel,   
awakening after the long nightmare...  
  
And this *hurt* like nothing ever had before.  
  
For her part, Usagi wasn't aware of Mamoru's torturous inner   
monologue, but she could still sense something terrible happening right   
below the surface of the complex man she dared to love wholeheartedly.   
"Mamo-chan?" she began into his back. "Is something wrong?"  
  
"Nothing," he mumbled, and ripped out of her grasp. With a sigh   
he flopped onto the couch, again rubbing his temples. When he closed   
his eyes, all he saw was Usagi and the faceless wraith, laughing and   
playing at love, reveling in emotion rather than letting it tear them   
to ribbons. Things he didn't understand and could never share with   
her. Love would always be something untrustworthy and painful to him;   
even if Usagi was the finest of teachers, he could not lose himself in   
love. That was his failure, but it had been a lot easier to accept   
when he thought Usagi didn't know better.  
  
"Mamo-chan..." She brushed stray bangs from his eyes, the simple   
compassion of her actions nearly driving him to the brink of some   
unwarranted, mindless fury. He shook off her gentle touch and nearly   
leapt off the sofa in angry, disjointed motions, pacing furiously   
towards the balcony, stopping instead to lean his forehead against the   
glass. His left knuckles rapped lightly against the clear sheet while   
he leaned more heavily; his eyes closed as if deep in thought.  
  
Tears fell unabashedly down her cheeks as her private nightmare   
played out in front of her. The years of guilt and regret poured over   
her like an acid wash, eliciting a single broken sob as she crumpled to   
the floor. Though she stifled her weeping against a delicate knuckle,   
the soft, pained sounds still escaped.  
  
"I'm not angry with you, Usa-ko," he said tonelessly, not even   
bothering to feign sincerity. Mamoru didn't move; he remained   
perfectly still against the glass. For the first time, he thought, he   
hated his apartment, the blank, neutral tones, the immaculate décor,   
the frigid lack of personality.  
  
And he hated himself for creating it most of all. How could   
Usagi, who was so full of life and love, love someone as empty as he was?  
By all indications, he may as well have never existed.  
  
Maybe he didn't understand, but he was still determined to hold   
on to her with the full force of his will. And that meant bottling the   
consuming aching within him before it spiraled out of control.  
  
"Tell me what's wrong," she whispered, aching and raw with pure   
emotion, still strewn in the pathetic heap on his drab gray carpet.   
"For once, please."  
  
Flesh and stone, blood and ice. Furious words bubbled in his   
chest, but he refused to make the wholly selfish and unfair admission   
to her. Ration argued vehemently against the firestorm of emotion   
raging within him, but try as he might, he could not choke down the   
horrid things that flooded his mind. He stayed stiff and still, as if   
motion would release the malicious torrent upon the world.  
  
Because Gods, he loved her beyond reason or understanding. She   
was the one who'd saved him from himself, who had made him finally   
complete, who had led him out of the shadow and into the Promised Land.   
Her love was the drug that had replaced sex for him, and this viciously   
ripped his fragile belief system apart.  
  
Usagi's soft sobs vaguely permeated his consciousness, and two   
slate slits appeared to look over at the wretched girl. She had her   
head in her hands, and her golden pigtails pooled almost protectively   
about their mistress. Though her eyes were bloodshot, they augmented   
the clear blue of her eyes, giving them an unearthly glow. "Please,"   
she pleaded one last time. "Just tell--"  
  
"You were supposed to love ME!" Usagi yelped as the glass pane   
exploded from within, shattering as the incensed Prince of Earth put   
his hand through it, furious emotion, blood and sound and shards of   
love and anger all mixing into a volatile cacophony. The debris   
scattered carelessly around them, leaving them both with a deep sense   
of ruin. She stared at him with wide, blinking doll's eyes, slowly   
gathering herself off the floor and standing up on her two feet. "All   
those years I was ALONE, Usa-ko, when I was waiting for you--those   
girls meant nothing to me but this, THIS!" He snatched a towel hanging   
off a chair and gently wrapped it around his bleeding appendage,   
fighting back tears to reflect the ones silently dripping from Usagi's   
cheeks. He closed his eyes and swallowed. "This is the worst betrayal   
of all."  
  
The room was so quiet that the beating of a moth's wing could   
have been easily discerned.  
  
Usagi was shaking too again, and while her tears ran steadily   
down her cheeks the soft, broken cries accompanying them had flown away   
with the breeze now circulating through the room.  
  
"I told myself that for years after meeting you," she began in a   
rasping, embittered voice, "that I had betrayed us by loving somebody   
in the interim--by trying to be *happy*, as opposed to looking for   
meaningless sex with nameless girls like you did," she said   
acerbically, throwing his own words back in his face.  
  
"That's not fair," he whispered, the rage that had consumed him   
like a gasoline fire suddenly extinguished. All he was left with was a   
growing guilt and the familiar self-loathing.  
  
She sobbed softly. "It's not fair when *I* say it, you mean,"   
she wept miserably. "Mamo-chan! You have to have EVERYTHING from me,   
but I get nothing in return. Even this! Why do you have to be the   
only one? YOU'RE the one...the one I always wanted. But you want   
MORE?"  
  
"I can't help how I feel," he protested miserably, feeling the   
anger transform into bleak misery. "I need you and I . . . "  
  
  
"And what about me? You take it all from me, Mamo-chan, take   
it so there's nothing left and I'm just a shell. And I'm TIRED of it!   
You're an emotional vampire!" She spat the last sentence. "Can't   
we let this go and just be HAPPY for once?"  
  
The truth rang through him as if it were a cathedral bell. "No."  
  
Her sobs broke his heart, but as he stepped forward to comfort   
her, bloodied hand and all, she shrieked violently, as if he were a   
stranger trying to kidnap her, and ripped away from his grasp, dashing   
to the other side to the room to escape him. "Don't touch me right   
now," she ordered. "I can't think...when you touch me."  
  
Mamoru struggled to find something, anything he could say to calm   
her down. When his mind didn't come up with anything, he settled for   
the truth. "I never said I was a perfect man, Usa-ko."  
  
When he said that, Usagi's eyes took on a strange, glittering   
quality he had never seen. "No, and that never changed the fact I love   
you...and it never will...because, I love you so, so much," she sobbed   
quietly. "So much," she repeatedly brokenly, "but..."  
  
He felt his heart stop at the lingering last word. "But?" he   
uttered through cracked, desperate lips.  
  
Usagi stared him straight in the eye, mournful but determined.  
  
"But you make me wish I didn't."  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
I remember that time you said, "Love is touching souls--"  
surely you've touched mine?  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Chiba Mamoru sat in the darkness, not bothering to get up and   
turn on a light as the last rays of the sunlight faded from the sky.   
Seconds, minutes, hours had passed--he'd lost track a long time ago,   
not caring about useless marks on a clock at the moment.  
  
The words were some sort of black curse; they pulsed through his   
system, ripping things away like slow-acting cyanide. He didn't bother   
to think, simply stared vacantly, absorbed in his shock and anguish,   
too tired and destroyed to make sense of anything that had happened.  
  
Tears ran down his face on and off; it wasn't worth the effort to   
wipe them away. He felt dirty, as if he hadn't showered in a week (when   
he just had this morning), and yet he did not feel the inclination to   
stand and do something about it at that moment.  
  
When his doorbell rang, he almost didn't bother getting it at   
all. But after the third ring, accompanied by insistent knocking and   
the rapidly speeding beat of his heart, he reluctantly stood up and   
opened the door.  
  
She practically launched herself into his arms, weeping softly   
into the soft folds of his shirt. He retreated instantly, mamoreal to   
her incarnadine fire, caustic and despondent and aimless in love and   
yet unable to quite reach out and connect to her and the heat she could   
provide.  
  
"Will it always be like this between us, Mamo-chan, with one of   
us constantly running after the other?"  
  
He didn't want to show any weakness in front of her, but   
his traitorous tear ducts had other plans. Hastily he wiped them away,   
but not before Usagi could see. "I don't know."  
  
Her weeping broke his heart, but he trembled at the thought of   
a repeat performance of earlier. He couldn't deal with that level of   
rejection at the moment.  
  
Usagi had other ideas. Mamoru felt her sneak up on him, and   
yet was startled when she wrapped his arms around his waist, her tears   
hot and sticky on his back, unknowingly mimicking earlier that night   
before everything they shared had been ripped and thrown away so   
carelessly. Automatically he placed his hands over where hers clasped,   
always determined to offer her his strength and warmth.  
  
Was this really how they would spend their whole lives?  
  
This endless dance, perpetual state of longing, the horrible   
chasm that only holding her in his arms could fill?  
  
It was an empty existence, living solely for another when each   
conspired to destroy their happiness before ever meeting their intended.  
  
"Make it go away," she pleaded in an aching whisper, "it hurts   
too much...Mamo-chan, the only thing I ever wanted was to be with you."  
  
He knew what she was asking him to do, to lose himself him in   
her and she in him, to throw caution to the wind for this singularly   
aching, eternal moment and love her without any other thought behind   
it. Usagi wanted to perpetuate the charade.  
  
Usagi pulled away, and the too-familiar chill shook him from   
within, already leaving him desperate for the warmth of her skin.  
  
She cupped his face in her small, fragile hands, lighting   
coursing over his lips over and over, drawing him in like a black   
hole that led the way to the highest levels of Heaven. He dare   
not pull away; the pain threatened to eat him alive otherwise.  
  
"Please," she entreated one last time as she drew away from   
him physically and spiritually. "Just stop it."  
  
Mamoru felt the familiar sensation of ice running through his   
veins, the deadly, systematic slicing of his insides, the sensation of   
falling, always falling...  
  
...this was life without her.  
  
It was so much easier to pretend and make it go away for a   
little bit, than face the truth.  
  
And so he gladly obliged, taking her lips and body; he lost   
himself in the feel of her skin, the sound of her cries, the taste of   
her mouth...  
  
...the bliss of forgetting.  
  
But no ecstasy could erase the sharp sting of her words; no   
matter the heights their lovemaking brought them to, Mamoru couldn't   
quite forget that she still meant every word she had said earlier.  
  
If he was indeed an emotional vampire, then he would gladly   
take everything she gave.  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
It's over now, I'm cold, alone; I'm just a person on my own  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
She sat at the edge of the bed, arms wrapped around her stomach   
tightly, wearing one of Mamoru's shirts. The buttons were off one and   
her hair was loose, giving her a disheveled appearance. She was   
looking out the window, off into the distance, her back to Mamoru.  
  
He slowly returned to consciousness, reaching for the small girl   
he had loved more deeply than anything in this world or the next and   
yet could never find the words to tell her as much. He placed his hand   
on her arm, and she could feel his eyes boring into her.  
  
"Is something the matter, Usa-ko?"  
  
"No," she whispered. "It was..."  
  
...amazing.  
  
...beautiful.  
  
...wondrous.  
  
...completely empty.  
  
It shouldn't have been like this their first time, with all the   
anger and hurt between them, but Usagi was too tired and lonely to care   
about healthy relationships and communication. She just wanted to *feel*   
him for a while.  
  
She let him drag her back down to the bed, frantic to be lost   
again, but even as she touched souls with him, let him take her to the   
utmost heights of physical and emotional intimacy, one thought rang   
through her mind like a siren's song.  
  
Tomorrow they would reemerge in the world and pretend none of   
this had ever happened. They would live the fairytale, follow the   
dream, and forget this, forget that after the moonlight and the roses,   
the Queens and the Kings and the worlds they transcended to be   
together, when all that was stripped away, they were simply two   
desperately lonely people searching for completion in another,   
looking to lose oneself in heated touch and shocking kiss.  
  
She didn't have the strength to make it any other way, and   
neither did he. They would wait behind their carefully constructed   
walls, replace the cold truths they'd learned with ordinary nuances,   
act the part and live silently with their unnecessary solitude.  
  
This was the price paid when one dreamed of and demanded castles   
in the sky: to revert to the role of the ingénue.  
  
Even with him by her side, there would be no happy ending.  
  
And Tsukino Usagi swore she heard the sound of her heart   
shattering like glass as she lay in his embrace.  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
And I started dreaming that I wouldn't feel any of this again, again  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
~Owari~  
  
  
Ai: And that's a wrap, folks.  
Readers: ...  
  
Yeah, a LOT of ANs to write. Might as well get cracking.  
  
#1) I'm relatively certain that there are people out there who did not   
like what they just read. And they wouldn't have liked it even if I wrote   
like Hermann Hesse, dammit. Allow me to explain how this idea, especially   
in conjunction with the song, began to evolve:  
  
Some of you may know Cyperian of Cyprus's "Turn Back Time." During one of   
our many AM conversations, Emily (Cyperian) asked me for my unbiased   
opinion of the fic. (And once I get started, I so pick.) After a long   
hashing session, including a potential idea for a fanfic series based on   
the TBT theme, THIS came up. Or more accurately, it had sort of   
waiting to be hit upon. It comes on the heels of a rather shocking   
confession from a close friend regarding her sex life...someone I never   
would have expected to hear this from. And so Usagi (and to a lesser   
extent, Mamoru, although he's not a young girl!) the ingénue was born.   
Is it OOC? I think not; the story above is my only defense to that   
claim however. Em and I literally discussed this for hours, how they   
would react, when and how the revelation might come, guilt, hypocrisy,   
anger, anguish--had a lot working for it.  
  
All of this came on the heels of actually receiving Em's song for the   
SMRFF lyric wheel challenge. She didn't pick the song with the idea in   
mind, people. And while the lyrics were quite good, since there certainly   
were some doozies on the wheel this time (*cough*RayeJohnsenandCori*cough*   
^_~), I nevertheless struggled with them a great deal.  
  
The lyrics are actually a little deceptive. They're very ambiguous   
in that, had I the inclination (not that I would have), this could   
have been WAFF. Hence my dilemma with them. You either went for the   
positive (that it's okay to fall sometimes) or the negative   
(that people fall and break) spin. There was sort of the middle   
ground as well, which again went either way. I'm of the opinion that   
the is about making what you will of what happens, whether it's good   
or bad. In Usagi and Mamoru's case, they made the wrong one. Such   
is life. The wheel's theme, "Chasing a Dream," reflected this darker   
spin as well: the dream was to live the fairytale, even at the expense of   
their happiness and comfort.  
  
So I guess deep down I always knew this fic and this song were connected,   
even though I was already using other song snippets as break lines.   
Initially I was going to use a Makoto/Nephrite fic idea for this story,   
but I decided the connection was too vague. So I had to make   
Ingénue, which I kept being compelled to write despite finals and the   
like, work. For a while, I planned to interject the lyrics into the   
fic to "justify" it being my fic. Frankly, I don't think I need   
to do that any longer. It would only be forced, and the song *did*   
inspire the ending of the fic. (It would take me 24 hours for the   
effect to take place and allow me to drop my original ending idea, but   
nonetheless I do credit this song for it.) Call it BS, but I would   
theorize that my lyrics sum up the spirit of the story (which some   
would say wasn't very spirited, and I would concur).   
  
Some of your aren't going to like this, as I stated above. If you   
disagree with this story, I always encourage constructive criticism and   
thoughtful response. Intelligent feedback is the best kind. I will   
NOT tolerate idiot flamers. Should these appear I will officially   
declare it "Flamer Hunting Season."  
  
#2) Big thanks to Emily and Megs (DQBunny) for listening to my   
random madness. I would appreciate and encourage honest feedback   
regarding this story, especially considering its dubious topic.  
  
#3) I apologize for liberal use of the Yamhead. I really hate her and   
usually like to write her out of fics somehow, but this one required  
her. Hopefully she wasn't butchered too badly?  
  
#4) The break lines all used assorted song quotes. The songs they're   
from are as follows:  
  
#1 - Aimee Mann, "That's Just What You Are"  
#2 - Counting Crows, "Angels of the Silences"  
#3 - Fuel, "Hemorrhage in my Hands"  
#4 & 5 - Aimee Mann, "Pavlov's Bell"  
#6 - Aimee Mann, "The Moth"  
#7 - Better than Ezra, "Falling Apart"  
#8 - Third Eye Blind, "Semi-Charmed Life"  
#9 - Joni Mitchell, "A Case of You"  
#10 - K's Choice, "Not an Addict"  
#11 - Boston, "More Than a Feeling" (But I VASTLY prefer the Sleater-  
Kinney cover ^_~)  
  
(Can you tell I've been on an Aimee Mann kick lately?)  
  
The songs would, by the way, make up an excellent soundtrack for this   
story as well, in addition to Riddle's.  
  
#5) For once my no-sequel policy is NOT in effect! I won't promise   
anything, but I do suspect I'll be compelled to resolve the issues the   
fic presented. Usagi and Mamoru at this time in the timeline lack the   
mental and emotional strength to overcome their problems, so they   
preferred to bury them and go back to living as if none of this ever   
happened. It's possible they could in the future; I daresay it's even   
necessary.   
  
So again, I might write a fic resolving them. I might not. Not really   
sure at this point. Please don't ask for one; I'm sort of a freak   
about that and might decide against it. Basically, no promises.  
  
All right. I think that covers everything. Oh! Almost forgot!  
  
Remember: feedback goes to tennyo@attbi.com!  
  
  
--Ai-ko, 12/16/2002 


End file.
